Two like-minded souls join forces in the ‘Going down the road feeling bath’ tour!Visual artist / musician Melle de Boer is frontman of the band Smutfish – their debut album Lawnmower Mind (2003), full of melancholic existentialism, is the founder of the Dutch ‘country noir’.The American singer-songwriter Johnny Dowd draws for his alt.country from the same dark source as De Boer – not for nothing he is compared to Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart.Dowd arrives in December 2017 with a new album full of interpretations of American folk classics.The traditional songs are brought exactly as they should be brought by Dowd and De Boer: full of soul, current and electricity.Do not expect a sleepy singer-songwriter’s evening, but a concert full of contrasts!

Soulmates with a dark message
They both sing about the fringes of society: Melle de Boer and Johnny Dowd. Two americana artists of two generations and different birth grounds join together. Tonight in the Horse in The Hague.

Machiel Coehorst 08-02-18, 16:04

Johnny Dowd is from Ithaca, a sleepy university town in the state of New York. He had a transport company there and made music in his free time. Until he was discovered by a record manager and made his debut at the age of 50 as a singer-songwriter and interpreter of raw pop country. Melle de Boer is from Delft / The Hague, made a furore with his bands Smutfish and John Dear Mowing Club and, like Dowd, has a predilection for the country noir. In honor of their new albums the two musicians make a joint tour and tonight they do the Horse.

Despite the age difference (Melle de Boer is 45 years, Johnny Dowd almost 70) the two musicians are seen as soul mates. De Boer can agree with this typing. “Yes, there are certainly similarities between Johnny and me. The music comes to us both from the same source: The doubt about everything, and the subcutaneous things that are not often spoken. ”

It should be clear: for a cheerful night out you are at the wrong address. Melle de Boer and Johnny Dowd have more affinity with the dark sides of life. ,, We both seek out the frail edges of society. Our texts deal with topics such as loneliness, the difference between rich and poor and the way in which people interact with each other. “” But there is no mere darkness in their music. ,, We try to lighten the dark side, ” De Boer says poetically. ,, The audience is also singing along with the American songs and there is also a lot of laughter. ”

Revelation
We try to illuminate the dark side, Melle de Boer
The duo has just finished a tour through England. For De Boer it was a revelation: “They look at music very differently than here. In the Netherlands it must be fun and cozy. In England they really listen to the songs. From time immemorial there is of course also the tradition to listen to music together, and not to chat through it. ” He was a bit nervous at the start of his first tour through England: ‘I doubted my English and did not know whether I would pronounce the lyrics correctly. And then you’re in such a crowded room … “” But the response was very good. ,, I have rarely received so many enthusiastic reactions and more CDs have been sold than ever. ”

One advantage was that De Boer did not have to explain his English-language texts, as he is used to doing in the Netherlands. For instance, during a performance he once projected self-made drawings (De Boer is also an artist) in the background (‘With every sentence a new drawing’). An explanation of his texts was not necessary in England, right? ,, Well, I had already started in an uncomfortable way, until I realized that it was not necessary, ha ha. ”

Back to his collaboration with Johnny Dowd. What appeals to De Boer most in the man who is known for his rather quirky, sometimes utterly inscrutable music? ,, His songs are sometimes quite difficult yes. The beauty of him is that he never tries to please. “” The music of Johnny Dowd is not only difficult to fathom, but also very ungraceful. “Still, he is a cheerful man, despite all those heavy songs. It was very nice in the tour bus! ”

When two people dig long enough, they eventually meet each other.Johnny Dowd and Melle de Boer have been digging tunnels in the human soul for years.As Orpheusen they descend into the underworld and with danger to their own lives bring out the most beautiful things.Now those tunnels come together.December 2017 Johnny Dowd comes out with an album with his interpretations of American Folk classics.Songs like: Going Down the Road, St. James Infirmary, Tom Dooley, Oh my Darling Clementine.They are Traditionals, the basis of American music.Johnny and Melle will bring them almost unrecognizable.Not quaint, but as they should sound now, current, full of soul, electricity and necessity.They mirror a direct reaction to current American society, with all the tensions and uncertainties that are conceivable in this respect.

Melle de Boer will release an album in early 2018.A solo album very close to itself.This album is recorded in his attic.The same attic as the father of Melle left after his divorce.Ghosts live in that attic.Ghosts that whisper songs.Johnny and Melle are going to tour the Netherlands.They play their songs.Old songs, new songs.Not a dull singer-songwriter night but electric, chaotic, hard and ugly, soft and beautiful.Alone and together.They combine their completely own worlds to provide an unforgettable, but especially unique, performance.Johnny takes his guitarist Mike Edmondson with him.He provides a solid percussion guitar where Johnny can put all his craziness and chaos into it.Mike also sings along.Melle is assisted by Suzanne Ypma.She has recorded his new album together with Melle.Suzanne is from the electropop.The synthesizer has an important role in the new album.

Twenty years have passed since Johnny Dowd, with his Wrong Side Of Memphis, suddenly found an audience for his country noir at the age of fifty, after a life on the fringes of existence.Fifteen albums later – Twinkle, Twinkle is the latest – he joins forces with visual artist and Smutfish leader Melle de Boer for the Going Down The Road Feeling Bad tour.The duo promises an evening full of ‘soul, actuality and electricity’.

Also, That’s Your Wife on the Back of My Horse placed in the top third of No Depressions Readers Poll Best of 2015. Pretty good good for a musician described by Alan Taylor as giving ” … a firm and mighty middle finger to the clones of the music industry and those who created them.”

One of the happiest moments in the life of every critic arising from the unfortunate generation X is a fresh album Johnny Dowd. I let it go in the Constitution!

Zanemaromo you osredniji By the Gargon from 2013, three years after the excellent No Regrets, Johnny Dowd returned as good dynamic figure That’s Your Wife on the Back of My Horse. Remember that insane albums from 2012, with the titles of songs in the form of female names like Betty, Rita, Nancy, Abigail or Candy?

This leads us to two conclusions – em what Dowd clearly not gay, three years ago, is experiencing difficult moments analyzing his then not quite grateful position through the prism of some women who marked his life. But three years later, Johnny is bursting with life and creativity, and the name of the album can be viewed as a form of derisive phrase “Who fucks, I won and it is with me now!”.

Of course, it is subjetivno author view these announcements, but still there is something at the same time megalomasnko, relaxed and happy in this new album, even if happiness is deceptive term and often used a mask of melancholy and depression.

Dowd About Dowd does not need to write a litany, after his flair necessary (and only possible) to experience auditory sense. Therefore, dear listeners, deign to listen to one izvrstanalbum this top and unusual singer-songwriter, because you’ll just be able to make a personal objective judgment. A Dowdov work was well worth a thorough listening, especially if you belong to a group of purists who disdain and disgust view the coexistence of traditional and experimental. as in this case Johnny’s songs could you act on healing and enlightenment!

That’s Your Wife on the Back of My Horse is primarily album a variable character, which in turn may or may not suggest changes of mood (despite the fact that Johnny and I share the same diagnosis), but simply point to his already proverbial modus operandi. Johnny is in its earliest days was a typical country / blues singer-songwriter, but eventually in his compositions began to bring elements of lo-fi ambient, electronics, and to a certain extent and tastefully packed hip-hop.

This album expected flying over all these influences but also the sideways – has the fundamental rock, psychedelic blues, country, pop, playing with nerves slušateja, practically everything, but Johnny is his song masterfully scrambled in a meaningful series, and believe the author of these lines; if about Mr. Dowd know at least some basic things, and if you like to listen to Wrong Side of Memphis, Cemetry Shoes or A Drunkard’s Masterpiece, then That’s Your Wife on the Back of My Horse work that will truly delight!

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